


The Best Gift

by Baroness_Blixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, the doll mulder gave to scully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 23:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10887165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/pseuds/Baroness_Blixen
Summary: When Scully gave up William, she left him the doll Mulder once gave her. Now, the boy still keeps that doll like a treasure.





	The Best Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a headcanon over at tumblr.

There are only three things in his huge backpack that he’s slung over his shoulder; his favorite book, a photo album and that doll. His mother, Dana, Scully, call me what you feel most comfortable with, looks at him as if he’s going to break any moment; maybe that’s why her hand is always hovering around him somewhere, yet never quite touching him.

“This will be your room,” she tells him, an uncertain smile playing around her lips; the room is sparsely decorated with a bed and a desk, “We, well I, didn’t know what you liked so I thought… you can decorate it any way you want.” Will nods once and steps inside. He sits on the bed, puts down his backpack next to him as if it’s heavy for his still small shoulders. He doesn’t know what to say, or do, so he looks up at Dana, who seems equally lost.

“Uhm, why don’t you unpack? I could make something to eat, maybe. Or we could go visit…,” she licks her bottom lip, stares at the floor, “we could go to the hospital again.” And Will just nods. Dana doesn’t move; what did he just agree to? Will realizes that he should talk, say anything. His mother, the other one, the one he’ll never see again, taught him better than this. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am. She just forgot to tell him how to act around his birth parents. It’s easier with his father, with Mulder, because he does not have any expectations yet. Still in a coma, as Dana explained it, he doesn’t know about Will. The boy prefers it that way. He can spend hours watching the man. The nose looks familiar, the lips do, too, and Will wonders what he’ll see once Mulder wakes up, looks at him.

Will opens the backpack’s zipper and the sound is unbearably loud here in his room. Dana is still standing in the doorway, neither inside nor outside. Carefully Will extracts the book of fairy tales. His cheeks color; he’s 15 years old and he carries a big book of fairy tales around with him. Dana’s eyes are on him, he can feel it, but she’s quiet; just an observer. So Will continues. The photo album is next. He didn’t bring it for himself. All those picture don’t mean much to him; it’s all in his head. His mother never understood it when he said he can see it all like a movie behind his eyes. She’d laughed joyfully (Will thinks he misses her laugh the most; he’s yet to hear Dana laugh, or even giggle), almost always full of happiness and so much love. There’s a picture inside this album, it’s the first one in it, reading “The day we received the greatest gift”. It shows Will, a soft tuft of reddish hair on his head, a fist in his grinning mouth, wearing a ufo onesie. Later, much later, when Will knew he was adopted and he and his mother went through the album together he’d asked her about it. He thought maybe it had been his father, the only one he’d known then, had put him in it. “No, baby, your other mommy put you in this. I don’t know why. It’s an odd choice, isn’t it? But you were so cute in it.” One day, Will thinks, he’ll ask Dana about it. Maybe, after all, it was his father’s choice after all; his other father.

The last item he extracts is the most important one: his doll. He’s had it all his life, held on to it tightly knowing it was the only thing his birth parents had left him. He had slept with it as a baby, as a toddler and even nowadays the doll needs to be close, even if Will won’t admit to it. The doll, it must be old he thinks, is well loved; once an arm was torn off by a friend and Will had cried for hours, until his head hurt and no more tears were left. His mother sewed the arm back on, carefully, and Will now touches the seam gently. He hears a gasp and turns to Dana.

“You still have it.” Her voice is full of amazement as she comes closer, her eyes never leaving the doll. She sits down beside him and they’re almost touching. Will faces her as she reaches out tentatively towards the doll.

“I didn’t think you'd… keep it.” Will glances at the doll. Did she really think he’d let it go? That he’d throw it away once he knew his birth mother had given him up? She doesn’t know him, it shoots through him, and she doesn’t know anything about the life he’s led. Not yet.

“Of course,” he bites his lip and she looks at him, her eyes a mirror of his own, like he’s a miracle; a wonder to behold, “It was all I had… I mean. You know?” She nods, though he is not sure she really understands. He would look at this doll sometimes in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep and wonder about her, about his father, too, and this doll. Why this doll? He had whispered into the night. Not once did he receive an answer.

“When I… when I had to give you up, I wanted you to have something to remember me – us – by. It seems silly now. You were just a baby… but I wanted you to have the doll. You loved it so much and I always felt like you sensed its importance. Your father gave it to me before you were born. It was his sister’s once and… he didn’t tell me until later,” she chuckles, lost in a memory that’s her own, and Will’s ears ring with the new sound as if he’s just discovered his new favorite song, “he made it for her after she broke her arm to cheer her up. He said that… we weren’t really in a good place and uhm, he said he wanted me, and you, to have something that symbolized his love and he… he told me that he spent night after night working on this doll to make it perfect. But there’s more to his doll, William,” she stops here, licks her lips again; he just watches her, every reaction, catalogues it neatly in his mind, “the best gift, apart from you, your father ever gave me was courage. Courage to believe, to follow my heart, to love. That’s why I needed you to have this doll. I hoped… I hoped the doll could give you at least a piece of that when I couldn’t give you anything else. I’m glad you kept it.” She traces the faded face, a sad smile on her lips, and Will can no longer take it. His hand, slightly sweaty, shaking just the tiniest bit, lands on hers, and her head shoots up. Tears swim in her eyes and he, he doesn’t know her well either yet, but he thinks not all of them are sad.

“I’m glad I kept it, too.” Then, without warning, she hugs him tightly, finally, and Will closes his eyes, sighs in relief. He’s home.


End file.
